“Wait till June 30 when more entertainers, grandstanding charlatans, and come-backing members of the Comite de Silencio enter the chamber
The thing speaks for itself.
This Latin term which lawyers know by heart was once the response of a GOCC CEO to the post-facto objections of a Cabinet member to a project approved by the board and by the president of the Republic himself.
Because some quarters objected to the project, the relevant Senate committee called for an inquiry. The Cabinet member denied knowledge about the project.
The CEO of the GOCC presented a resolution duly approved by the board of the GOCC, which contained the signature of the chair who happened to be the Cabinet member, mismo.
Then, the CEO uttered the words in Latin, “res ipsa loquitor.”
The chair of the inquiring Senate committee terminated the single hearing immediately thereafter.
Fast forward to the current brouhaha about the “most corrupt budget in Philippine history,” and the bicameral conference committee report signed by the Diyos Co-Poe tandem which became the basis of the General Appropriations Bill and submitted to Malacanang for the president’s signature.
The HoR chair was decapitated on the first day of the resumption of the chamber, and he is probably nursing his wounded ego beside the shores of Misibis where he built a fabulous resort during the reign of GMA and her FG.
For her part, the chair of the Senate Finance Committee broke her Sphinx-like silence after almost a week, mouthing what her “SP Chiz” had earlier said.
Recall that after smiling before media with the obra maestra of a bicam report she and the kingmaker of Bicolandia presented, she said the AKAP which the Senate vowed to excise from the GAB was restored, because the House agreed to give the senators 5 billion.
In effect, she admitted that AKAP is a cache of pork to be divvied up, 21 billion among the congressmen, 5 billion for the 23 senators.
Divided equally, each senator gets 217.4 million pesos, unless some are “smarter” than others?
The boss of the former appropriations chairman is cooling off in Davos upon Graubunden in the Swiss Alps. So it was left to SP Chiz to shush the opponents of their magnum opus.
Admired by his co-alumni in the state university and his fraternal brothers in the Alpha Phi Beta for his legal acumen and sharp political instincts, he belatedly dismissed the findings of the twice-elected chair of the HoR appropriations committee as nothing more than political noise in an election year. Misleading, a judge would say. Answer the issue, not ascribe motives.
To which Rep. Isidro Ungab of Calinan district in Davao City would simply show the bicam report with page upon page of blanks, corroborated by the Senate LBRMO mismo, virtually saying res ipsa loquitor, let the thing speak for itself, which resonates in UP’s Malcolm Hall as it does in Georgetown’s McDonough.
The former Speaker of the HoR, the late Ramon V. Mitra Jr., once observed that his colleagues in the chamber would sign even a piece of toilet paper if it is shoved to them.
Three senators now claim they did not see any blanks when they signed the disputed report, but a TV reporter showed pages of the bicam report, sourced from Senate records, further corroborated by the leftist members of the HoR.
No, ES Bersamin, they are not Ungab’s “inventions.” Still, the question remains: who filled in the blanks?
How the “upper” house has become same-same as the house they deride as “lower,” where members and even leadership sign without reading, is testament to the baseness of our legislature.
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The day after the president declared he would veto the Comprehensive Sexuality Education measure proposed by the 2028 fair hope of the pinklawan, Sen. Risa Hontiveros, because of “woke” provisions interpreted as prurient by prudes, several senators forthwith withdrew the bill now pending in the plenary, which seeks to combat the high incidence of teen-age pregnancy in the benighted land.
Did the seven senators sign the bill without reading too? That always happens in the HoR, as a former Speaker once declared. But in the Senate of a mere 23 members?
Which is why I always refer to the “upper” chamber as “once august”.
But wait till June 30 when more entertainers, grandstanding charlatans, and come-backing members of the Comite de Silencio enter the chamber.
Will it be a bigger, more entertaining circus, or will the Senate be entombed in the silence of the lambs?
